New Fulham possible record signing: what could this mean?
Is it a sign that the Fulham board is ready to put in some money with the possible acquisition of Kevin?
A new possible transfer record in buying one player would be a massive change and show an evolution towards transfers. A new threshold could be passed!
This could be explained by:
- Backing up and supporting all the great work done by Marco Silva, this could help us keep Marco for some additional years after his contract ends this season. Maybe two birds in one stone!
- We now have a solid team as we are beginning our fourth consecutive season in the Premier League; now is the time to step it up one notch to be a regular top ten Premier League team. Our transfers for our first two years in the PL were done to solidify the squad to be ready to hold our line in the Premier League. 2024 transfers showed a transition to be more ambitious, and 2025 is confirming that trend.
- Timing to step up appears good as we have kept all our best players, while other mid-table clubs such as Brighton, Crystal Palace and Brentford are losing their top players.
If we buy Kevin at 45 M€, it would mean a new transfer record and that in the last two years we have been setting cumulative new transfer records after buying Emile Smith Rowe for 31,8 M€ (per Transfermarkt) in 2024. The Kevin transfer would represent a 41,5% increase on our Emile Smith Rowe buy. Quite a big jump! Another way to put it is that Kevin at 45 M€ is 81,3% of the ESR+Sander Berge transfer fees we paid for them (55,35 M€). Yes, they are probably add-ons for ESR, but let us keep it simple.
A common trend to our recent acquisitions is that they:
- Tend to be younger players as we need to keep bringing youth to our team. In the 2024 transfer window, ESR was 24 when we bought him, Sander Berge was 26, Cuenca was 24, Ryan Sessegnon was 24, and Reiss Nelson was 24. Joachim Andersen, at 28, is older but brings in immediate experience and contribution. Willian at 36 was a too good to pass opportunity and added depth to the squad.
In the 2023 transfer window, Calvin Bassey was our youngest acquired player at 23 years old. Alex Iwobi, Adama Traoré, Timothy Castagne and Raùl brought us immediate Premier League experience.
- Have confirmed Premier League experience (Kevin being the exception).
We seem to be establishing a Brazilian connection (Andreas Perreira, Muniz and probably Kevin), which helps their integration, and they bring their madness on the pitch.
Buying young players also helps us to have a long-term view and to have some nice selling options in the future. This is even more the case with Fulham being very tough on the asking price for our players when we are on the selling side.
English players are expensive, and for the same price, we can buy players who bring more added value to the team.
A small but non-negligible advantage for Fulham is that we are able to attract players who want to stay in London (yes, I am looking towards Raheem Sterling!).
Come on, Fulham!